Advice for people new to life modeling

Stretch!
it's important to stretch out before classes and after, I also took up doing yoga to help with keeping fit and so I could expand on my posing.

Being Naked
A lot of people think that they couldn't do life modeling, when I took the jump to do life modeling I thought na I couldn't do that.

Can be a bit nervey for the first time, but a few seconds into it you see a lot of serious faces drawing away and you sorta just fall into the roll


What to do while posing
a few venues will play music, while other artists prefer to work in silence.
most people won't speak to you during poses, as this would waste the drawing for people.

I tend to meditate during poses, or think about what I need to do after the class.

First contact and building up contacts

You can be lucky or it can seem like quite a hard thing to crack into.

I worked with a few artist friends to start of with, just to help them get practice
My first proper gig was with all the young nudes.  I got that from messaging them when I started college through in Glasgow and looked into near by life modeling classes.

I just basically messaged everyone who did life modeling periodically to find out when and if they needed models.

There is quiet and busy times of the year I've figured
the summer tends to be quite quiet due to people traveling for summer, or classes taking breaks.
also colleges and universities on break.


I had a few people approach me at classes to do other classes but I found a few people a bit flakey and don't often get back in touch with you sometimes.

Most classes seem to work on a rotation of models, so if you get in touch with a class, and they are keen to take you they will add you to the rotation of models they will get in touch with, just to keep the classes fresh.

It is possible to build up contacts to do the life modeling often, but it does require alot of upkeep.
but it is possible.

poses

it's good to know what kind of poses will work for drawing, I was lucky to be an artist as well and had a rough idea what they would be looking for.

if you model for a college class or university, they might already have pictures of poses or idea's for structures such as one I did for City of Glasgow college
which was to motion walking and do short few minute poses
this was for an animation class.

but it is always good to research online to see what poses are good, and comfortable.

top tip for practicing poses, think of the negative spaces, triangles are a good shape for the body to make, and be aware of what your feet and hands are doing making sure they are kept comfortable.



also I found another interesting link for model advice: here





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